>> you start interrupting me. >> that's it for the five. thanks a lot. have a great night. bye! was president obama so focused on reelection that he was missing in action during the libya terror strike? this is special report. i'm john roberts in for bret baier. the terror attack against the u.s. mission in benghazi is our topic. testimony on capitol hill has ignited a fresh round of debate today. what's not going away are questions about last year's terror attack in libya after

panetta's final testimony yesterday. >> if i were a family member and one of my loved ones was killed in benghazi, i would be sick to my stomach. >> republican lindsey graham declared on twitter the president, quote, has to announce for his leadership on benghazi after panetta and general martin dempsey testified, they spoke to the president only once during the eight-hour attack. >> one time. >> right. >> you talked to him how many times? >> the same one time. >> graham and his republican colleagues repeatedly pressed panetta on why there was no direct follow up with mr. obama after they met in the oval office. >> are you surprised that the president of the united states never called you, secretary penta, and said how is it going? >> normally in these situations -- >> did he know the level of threat? >> let me wa finish the answer. we -- we were deploying the forces. he was being kept up to date. >> i hate to interrupt you but

we've got limited time. we didn't deploy any forces. >> the white house has said little about what the president did do on the night of september 11th besides releasing this official photo. today the administration tried to shoot down any notion that the president was checked out with one top defense issue e-mailing fox saying we had multiple phone calls, e-mails, video conferences with the national security council, state, cia, and all of the other players. panetta stressed many other american installations around the world face threats. >> you capture just willie nilly blow the hell out of a place without knowing what's taking place. >> panetta's testimony raised new questions about syria after he and dempsey revealed the president overruled almost his entire national security team when they pushed to arm the syrian opposition. >> did you support the recommendation by secretary of state, then secretary of state

clinton and then head of cia general petraeus that we provide weapons to the resistance in syria? did you support that? >> we did. >> now, white house spokesman jay carney said he could not get into internal deliberations but added the administration has to be very careful not to send weapons that could wind up in the wrong hands. john? >> ed henry for us tonight at the white house. ed, thanks. more of this later on in the program with the panel as well. you've probably noticed that you're paying a lot more for gasoline today than you did just a month ago. the national average, $3.57 a gallon. that is 27 cents more than it was in early january. crude oil futures were down 11 cents to close at 95.72 a barrel, but the entire equation may be changing. our chief national correspondent jim angle reports the days of america's against oamerica's den oil could be numbered. >> reporter: the u.s. has discovered so much energy than it thought it had.

some talk about north american energy independence. >> we could make opec n0pec. the reason, advances in technology such as fracking, horizohorizontal drilling and or improvements which increase natural gas production by 27% in just four years, making the u.s. number one in gas with oil on its way. >> we're talking decades, if not into the hundreds of years of supply in north america. >> it's been estimated by the energy information agency that we could be the number one oil producer in the world by 2020, surpassing saudi arabia, so this is a big deal. it's a game-changing opportunity, and it's of historic proportions. >> reporter: even though who share the administration desire to reduce the use the petro chemicals acknowledge projections that the u.s. will produce one-third more of its own oil by 2020. 1 analyst said self reliance

must include alternatives such as wind, solar, and more. >> we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil by shifting to electric vehicles and investing in public transportatatn as well as having much more efficient cars which are already underway. >> either way, analysts say being more energy sufficient could bring manufacturers back to the u.s. because they'd have a cheap and reliable source of energy. >> when you look at those potential opportunities to build new chemical plants, to expand steel capacity, to bring home a lot of those jobs that left over the past decade, the primary driver is the cost of energy. >> the u.s. is producing so much natural gas there's talk of actually exporting it, meaning hundreds of billions usually sent overseas to buy energy would stay here at home instead to boost the american economy. john? >> the question, of course, jim is will the policy follow the promise? jim, thanks as always. wall street finished the

week with a strong friday. the dow was up 49, the s&p 500 gained 8 and a half, the nasdaq finished up 29. here's a sentence we haven't uttered much in the last few years, there's good news tonight in the housing mark. fox business network senior washington correspondent peter barnes is here to explain. we can't wait to hear what you've got to say. >> reporter: john, the value of your home looks like it could keep going up this year, according to some economists. at an economic briefing here this morning, the chief economist of mortgage giant freddy mac said there's been a spat of positive housing news recently and he expects the momentum to continue. >> we're expecting total home sales up in 2013 and we expect the feaferrable news o favorable prices. they're up 4 to 6% last year compared to the year prior. we're expecting 3 to 4% increase in national house price indices

in 2013. >> you can see how the housing recovery has played out in these maps between 2009 and 2010, only north dakota and dc saw housing prices rise, both with economies that held up well, one thanks to shale oil, the other thanks to a gusher of government spending. then in 2011 we saw the markets perq up in four more states and by last year, prices were higher in all about seven states. he sees new home construction jobs up 25%. he's expecting a 20% jump in housing starts this year. he also sees mortgage rates inching up from about three and a half percent for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage but remaining below 4% for the year. but he worries about possible public policy disruptions that could hurt the economy and hurt demand for housing such as brinksmanship in the budget

battles here in washington. john. >> for the memo at least, peter, good news. peter barnes, thank so much. the eu leaders have agreed to a drastically reduced budget. the seven-year deal for 1.28 trillion dollars is the first spending cut in the union's 27-year history. it must still be approved by the eu parliament and lawmakers are already suggesting massive cuts are not acceptable. police in three western states and mexico are still searching for a former lapd officer who was accused of killing three people and threatening dozens more. let's get an update tonight from lapd headquarters and correspondent alicia acuna. >> reporter: because of the heavy snow in the mountains, the air search with the heat seeking equipment they've been using has been grounded. however, officials do say snow on the ground does help them track folks. >> our folks are highly trained. that's what h we train for.

>> reporter: the manhunt for christopher dorner carries on despite the snow. >> we're going to continue searching until either we discover that he left the mountain or we find him, one of the two. >> reporter: the last signs of the fired lapd officer were the tracks leading away from his burning truck found on thursday. >> we have no evidence at this point. >> reporter: the search isn't isolated to the big bear area. it stretches across california, arizona, nevada, and northern mexico. it includes the home of dorner's mother near irvine, california where police executed a search warrant. dorner posted a manifesto on line vowing to hunt down police and their families. it names targets dorner blames for getting him kicked out of the force. three people are dead and the fired cop suggests he won't be taken alive. the manifesto says self preservation is no longer important to me. i do not fear death as i died long ago. lapd chief charlie beck said the formal naval reservist is well trained and he knows police and military tactics inside and out.

>> the lapd is a specific target but all law enforcement is targeted. this is a vendetta against all of southern california law enforcement. >> reporter: and we're learning through court documents that in 2006 one of dorner's exgirlfriends put his badge on a website called don't date him girl.com, calling him twisted and super paranoid. john? >> alicia acuna in los angeles. thanks. california students can't seem to find the right answers in math class. what is being done about that later in tonight's grapevine. coming up next, iranian fingerprints on a big weapons smuggling bust. stay with us. coughequence™ #8. waking the baby. [ coughs ] [ baby crying ] ♪ [ male announcer ] robitussin® liquid formula soothes your throat on contact and the active ingredient relieves your cough. robitussin®. don't suffer the coughequences™.

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the man who shot pope john paul ii back in 1981 said he was following orders from iran's.

>> the weapons were from a group that called for an end to the

u.s. military presence found on a vessel intercepted in january. >> he was observed operating erratically and low in the water. so a routine boarding was conducted. arms were discovered. we had crew statements that indicated the point of origin was iran. >> beyond yemen, a new british report concludes iran has been expanding its footprint in africa by secretly supplying unmarked ammunition like the shipment uncovered in lagos in 2010 to fuel regional conflicts. the report describes iran's role in the sudan as sustained and potentially escalating. fox news is told that an israeli strike on the sudanese warehouse in objecting was linked to the iran smuggling operation. the head of the house intelligence committee who receives regular briefings on

iran. >> it's to escalate arms flow. why, they're feeling the pressure of sanctions. >> while tehran denies involvement, this week authorities link last summer's bus bombing that killed 5 aisraelfiveisraeli tourists. >> they believe the link to hezbollah reflect the fact that syria is also under pressure and the regime may ultimately fall depriving iranians of a key ally. >> john: kathryn hecatherine he, thanks. >> president obama's counter terrorism policy has been getting a pretty close examination this week during cincinnati weeks. tonight our chief washington correspondent, james rosen, reports from the state department on the contrast on how the obama policy has been rereceived versus that of his predecessor. >> americans should not expect one battle but a lengthy campaign. unlike any other we've ever

seen. >> their veriation of the detention camp at guantanamo bay, their use of secret cia prisons, approvele of water boarding, reluctance to share classified information and their advancement of novel legal theories to justify it all. >> i've explained to you why we're not turning over the documents. >> the bush administration caught holy hell from the left. >> we declared a war on terrorism. that gives me, george w. bush, the power to pretty much do whatever i want. so if i'm going to detain people in guantanamo bay without charging them, i can do that. if i want to declare an american an enemy combat tant and suspend their civil liberties, i can do that. >> now with an expanded drone campaign that ta targeted an american for assassination, it's the obama administration advancing novel legal theories. >> we have have as a basis for

action a congressional statute that allows us to to operate and balking at congressional oversite. >> i have nothing on alleged memos regarding potentially classified memphis. >> this president when he was a senator excoriated the bush administration for its presumption of an imperial presidency and presidential powers. now that he's the president, he's lucky he doesn't have a senator obama who is chas chastg him from the floor of the united states senate. >> reporter: some of the obama supporters dabbing at the sand man in their eyes appear to have awakend to the double standard. >> i have to say i was definitely on the critical end of things as were members of my family. we were very, very, very concerned about how far the bush administration pushed the boundaries of not only what is constitutional but what is morally right, and this is

definitely in the same category. >> obviously a democratic administration white house secret war policy memos are very different from the bush administration's secret war policy memos, and i assume the democrats have written them on recycled paper. >> in an editorial this week, the new york sometimes la meanted that president obama has, quote, stretched executive power for years to bolster the lethal drone program, but of president bush in 2008 the paper wrote that he had issued, quote, hundreds if not thousands of secret orders and subjected the constitution to, quote, relentless attack. john? >> james rosen tonight at the state department. more on that with the panel later on in the program as well. still ahead, while america cuts defense spending, potential enemies are increasing theirs. first, it could be the storm of the century. this time it really could be. we'll go live to boston for the big northeast snow event. [ male announcer ] i've seen incredib things. otherworldly things.

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the secret service is looking for a hacker who gained access to private e-mails sent to members of the bush family including both former presidents. one website said a hacker referred to as gucifer gained access to e-mails, photos, private telephone numbers, and addresses of family and friends. former illinois democratic congressman jesse jackson, jr. has agreed to a plea deal over the inappropriate use of official funds. fox news learned the case pertains to what is termed a social acquaintance of jackson. the congressman resigned last november shortly after being elected to a ninth term. they're calling it nemo, but it really could be sonoma getge. new england is bracing for one

of the worst snowstorms ever. as much as three feet are expected in some places like the city of boston. that's where correspondent molly line is tonight, out in the thick of it. good evening, molly. >> reporter: good evening, john. this is expected to pick up over the course of the night. we've seen the snow steadily rising and the winds picking up a lot. one of the biggest things happening in boston, history in the making. this hasn't happened for decades. they've actually shut down the highways here. the governor asking everyone to stay off the roads all across the state as of 4:00 in the afternoon. you can still see a few cars and moving around out here. essential what the governor has sworded through disek order is r is all non-essential vehicles off the roads. there's a sign that says that. if they catch people out here, they could possibly be fined and spend up to a year in jail. that means that you can still be a hospital employee and you can still go to work and be a snow plow driver.

anybody else should be safe at home by now. that's the order of the governor, and also the mayor of boston has been asking people to stay inside because they want to give the first responders and the snow plows a chance to get the roads cleaned up and to stay on top of this without causing more problems. the national guard has also been called out here in massachusetts, and you're seeing similar measures taking place in the other new england states as well. in connecticut and rhode island, in new york they've asked people to stay off the roads. they've also called in the national guard to help with the situation. so they're taking this very, very seriously, and there's an expectation there will be a lot of power outages because we're expected to have high winds tonight. tomorrow is when the cleanup will take place. very unlikely to happen until they have a chance for the snow to stop. take a listen to massachusetts governor deval patrick talking about the plans for tomorrow. >> the work to restore power outages that we're expecting will not begin until the storm ends which is expected to be

sometime tomorrow, late tomorrow afternoon. >> so essentially ther there's a number of utilities that they've beefed up. all the providers getting ready to get things cleaned up. they're also asking people to be very careful tomorrow. there's going to be deep snow. you may not know what's under it. could well be downed power lines. >> looks very terrible out there. molly line earning her paycheck this week for us. molly, thanks so much. power company in new orleans says a faulty relay is to blame for the pawrnlg at the super poe super bowl. half the superdome lights were out for a little more than half an hour. the relay was originally installed to protect equipment in the failure of a connecting cable. the makers of the relay say it was not failure of the part itself but how it was used. "fox news sunday" will talk about a host of issues including violence in entertainment. >> why don't you go to your friends in hollywood and challenge them, shame them and

say knock it off. >> well, i do think whatever we do, because when you talk about evidence-based, we have that throughout our proposal. in other words, we don't want to just be aneck dotely writing bills. >> you can see the entire pelosi interview and senator john mccain this weekend on "fox news sunday". apparently a lot of brain power is being wasted in math class. we'll tell you what one state wants to do about that. and iran's latest secret weapon. should you be afraid? the grapevine is next. ♪ [ male announcer ] how could a luminous protein in jellyfish, impact life expectancy in the u.s., real estate in hong kong, and the optics industry in germany? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses

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now for fresh pickings from the political grapevine, here's a question for educators. what do you do when 80% of your state's black and latino students are failing algebra? drop the course, financial. that's what california did for eighth graders. a san francisco area civil rights group tells the daily caller it's a step backwards. it says minority and low-income students will be left unprepared for college. it suggests california improve the math curriculum for fifth, sixth, and seventh graders so they can actually handle algebra in eighth grade. there are an estimated 250 wolves in france, and they like sheep. so much so that the government paid nearly $3 million last year in compensation for dead sheep. to save money, the french government is undertaking a rather strange experiment.

they are trying to educate wolves not to kill sheep. the national wolf plan doesn't involve a lecture about how cute lambs are and doesn't try to convert volves to vegetarian nism. ratherather, known sheep attacks are captured and let go. the near is the predators will be so traumatized by spending in captivity that they'll lose their appetite for sheep. in case they don't get that message, the wolves will be shot if they go back to their old ways. finally, a week after they claimed to have blasted a monkey into space, iran unveiled its version of a radar evading stealth fighter jet. the tiny one-seater looks like a toy that might not be able to fly. they call it laughable fake. a reporter for foreign policy said it looks like the iranian dumped some rudimentary flight controls and an ejection sheet into a shell molded into what they thought were stealthy angles. a defense analyst looks like it might make noise and vibrate if

you put a quarter in it. president ahmadinejad said it carries a message of peace, friendship, and brotherhood. our military achievements, he said, do not pose a threat to anyone. seems like in this particular case, it doesn't pose a threat to anyone which leads us to our next story about military achievements that do indeed pose a threat. there is word tonight that the united states facing drastic defense cuts could be falling behind some of its potential enemies. national security correspondent injurjennifer griffin looks at t prospect. >> reporter: for the first time in two years, the pentagon said it can't afford to keep two aircraft carriers in the persian gulf. the u.s.s. truman would have left today from norfolk, virginia. defense secretary leon panetta blamed the cut back on is he quest ration saying if congress can't rewrite the law, things get worse. >> instead of being a first-rate power in the world, we turn into a second-rate power. that would be the result of sequester. >> you won't find this chairman arguing we need to do more with

less. you'll find me arguing if that happens, we need to do less with less. >> russia will surpass u.s. defense spending in terms of overall percent of gdp in just two years. china is slated to overtake the u.s. in 2035. >> we've seen double digit increase s in chinese defense spending for more than 15 years now, and that really should not only give pause to the united states but it really should be a source of concern for the countries in the region as well. >> reporter: two years ago, then defense secretary robert gates brow beat nato allies to spent two percent of their gdp on defense. when france wanted to send forces into mali to counter al-qaeda in recent weeks, the u.s. had to provide the airlift and refueling because france needed u.s. help. >> these guys have been going gang busters, rolling out

prototypes of advanced weapons systems, whether it's new missiles, aircrafts, new drone aircraft. >> others argue that even with the sequester, the u.s. budget will drafe dwarf it's adversari. >> if is h sequestration happeno from spenting 40 cents out of every dollar to 38 cents. >> reporter: u.s. taxpayers spent $7 liv 11 billion, the equivalent of the next 13 defense budgets combined. the second largest defense budget in the world that year was china's, six times smaller than the u.s. but growing fast, john? >> jennifer griffin for us at the pentagon. thanks. is the president fully engaged in foreign policy? we'll ask the fox all-stars when we return. all right that's a fifth-floor problem... ok. not in my house! ha ha ha!

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the president of the united states has to account for his leadership here. i intend to hold him accountable. thus far the white house has delayed, denied, deceived, and stone walled and this has to come to an end. he has to account for his leadership. >> south carolina senator lindsey graham on hannity the other night talking about what could have been the president's lack of involvement as the benghazi attack was unfolding. stephen, you watched that entire hearing the other day. what are you thinking about this idea that there was only one phone conversation or one conversation between the president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff while this benghazi tragedy was unfolding? >> well, i will say having watched the hearing and having covered every twist and turn of this story for several months, i was shocked at that. i mean, it's not what i exengd to hear.

we haven't had a very good accounting of where the president was during that evening. we know he spent some time on the phone with bebe netanyahu, but we don't know what he was doing. i still didn't expect to hear from panetta and dempsey that they doesn't receive a follow up call from the president of the united states asking at least what was happening on the ground. you think about what was going on in that initial report. you knew the u.s. facility was under attack. later we found out the ambassador was missing. there had been, according to the testimony yesterday from general dempsey, teams deployed potentially to help in some kind of a rescue effort. this was total chaos. the u.s. facility on 9/11 under attack and the president of the united states didn't call to follow up? i find that absolutely extraordinary. the other thing we learned is they didn't have communication with secretary clinton, so whatever was happening, they clearly were not talking to one another. i agree entirely with lindsey graham. we need to have a full accounting of where everybody was minute by minute. >> the white house has said

today they're pushing back pretty heavily, saying there were multiple phone calls, e-mail, and secure video teleconferences. state, cia, all of the other players. is that the way something like this would routinely be handled? >> we have to remember this wasn't the only thing that was going on. i mean, i was up for half the night i think. a lot of people who typ follow s type of news. our embassy in cairo was under attack. all over the middle east it was exploding, so you would think the president would have more curiosity about what was going on. i find it shocking, frankly. you could tell by the way they were answering the questions they were uncomfortable giving up the information. it doesn't make sense. what was the president doing? did he just go to bed? i think liberals keep saying this conspiracy theory. this is basic government accountability. we don't need to know where the president was? he's happy to give us information when it benefits him.

we know everything about the bin laden raid, but we can't find out basic information and we still don't know what he was doing? >> if the shoe were on the other foot, if this were a republican administration during the helm, do you think script would be different? >> certainly from all the likely prospects like the democratic party, cnn, cbs, pbs, a few other outlets. i think it was really shocking that leon panetta testified that there were over 200 credible security threats for 9/11, right. he said it wasn't just benghazi. there were all these other possible threats. cairo embassy was on fire, being overrun. but not -- he said not only was no one scrambled to go to benghazi's rescue, no one was ready to be scrambled. there was no sufficient resources in the area for a thousand miles, panetta says. if you've got these warnings as dempsey said they knew about the cable that was sent to hillary

clinton saying benghazi's not defensible. they knew about the 200 threats. why wasn't there a plane ready to be scrambled for an intervention in the first place? it's a very strange oversight that no one teams t seems to be particularly outraged. >> you heard panetta say you can't fly in f-16s and bomb the heck out of a place. you can use it psych ljl psychoy and fly it over the compound. they're very intimidating. >> no question. at the very least they could have been used to disperse the crowds. you hear this when you talk to folks in uniform. that's what bothers them as much as anything. why wasn't something like that done, at least the very basics. you could dis percent the crowds, have additional flyovers, send a gunship. i've heard from people it would have taken 13 to 15 hours to have people to push back.

i've talked to several military folks today who say that's just not true, that they don't buy that explanation. >> so you do think that the pentagon here is shaping the facts to fit the narrative? >> i don't know who's shaping what facts. i just wish they could sit down and give us a beginning to the end story, you know, that this is just like chinese water torture, trying to get little bits and pieces of information out here and there. now we find out we he have general dempsey and secretary panetta saying we knew it was a terrorist attack, the mortar attack was very impressive. >> not to mention the video. remember the video? >> yeah. yet we know almost a week later, secretary or susan rice was saying quite the opposite, so people should care about this. i'm sorry. it's not a conspiracy theory. the government is giving out information that doesn't add up. they shouldn't get away with it. if people didn't watch the testimony, they should watch it. it's very impressive. the questioning was very good,

and a lot of important information comes up. >> you know, fox news was roundly chastised for making too much of this when i was covering the romney campaign. we bumped into each other a number of times along the campaign trail. every time we were at a romney event, people would come up and say thank you, fox news, for paying attention to the benghazi attack. i had someone say, a viewer of a different network but decided because of our attention to benghazi that they were going to switch their allegiance. overall, how do you think the administration has handled this? >> i think the administration and when i say administration, i mean the obama campaign has won. they got exactly what they qanted. they did exactly what they wanted to do which was to stonewall, obfuscate, fog things up, get righteously indignant about accusations with lots of merit long enough to get obama reelected. i read the transcripts today of the advice presentation debate

where joe biden's said paul ryan's criticism were all mala r key. they do not track anything we've seen in the hearings. >> hold it right there. much more to talk about after the break. coming up next, comparing the responses to the bush and obama anti-terrorism policies and whether they're that much different. don't go away. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] coughequence™ #8. waking the baby. [ coughs ] [ baby crying ] ♪ [ male announcer ] robitussin® liquid formula soothes your throat on contact and the active ingredient relieves your cough. robitussin®. don't suffer the coughequences™.

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this administration's at attitude was that we don't have to worry about the constitution. we've declared a war on terrorism, and that gives me, george w. bush, the power to pretty much do whatever i want. so if i'm going to detain people

in guantanamo bay without charging them, i can do that. i want to declare an american an enemy combatant and suspend their civil liberties, i can do that. >> john: that was then canada obama back in 2008 during the campaign accusing the bush administration using extra constitutional means of fighting the war on terrorism. now they are assassinating would-be terrorists with drones. we'll come back to the panel. stephen hayes, you know, he said that he was going to roll back the bush administration policies in fighting the war on terror. in some ways he's using tactics that are even harsher than anything that the bush administration used. >> i would say the key word there is some, and there's been sort of a rush to conventional wisdom that the obama policy is really just a continuation of george w. bush. i don't think that's true. there are a number of ways and i think very significant ways in which the obama administration has changed the bush policies. there's no more harsh interrogations. that ended sort of under george

w. bush, but he's ruled that out in the army field manual. you have law enforcement first approach to apprehending terrorists. if you look at what happened in benghazi as we were just talking about, one of the reasons that we haven't been able, i think, to capture more of the bad guys, the people that were involved is because we're not snatching people off the streets. we're going to the due kne tunin government and asking hat in hand if we might have access to these subjects. of course, you have this idea that we would send folks to war, to fight wars on these issues. so there are some significant differences, but there's no question that on certain issues there is tremendous hypocracy based on what the president said when he was campaigning and what he said in the early years of administration. >> on that note of hypocracy, i reached out to the arc tech of many of the bush anti-terrorism policies at the justice department. he said, quote, and i cut this down a bit. it should be clear by now that

president obama and his terrorism advisors are hypocrites, but i'm glade they are hypocrites because they chose to keep thehe policies tht have kept us safe for these 11 years instead of sticking to their misguided prince. if the obama folks after had the good graces to thank president bush, i'm sure he would say you're welcome. ciis the obama administration policy really that much different than the bush administration policy when you look at the point of transparency and bringing that power to fight the war inside the bounds of the white house? >> well, i think one of the issues is that even if you buy into the idea of using these assassinating an american citizen with a drone, for example, which i don't, but even if you do, it's obama promised us tran parent see. he promised oversight checks and balances, not what george bush had allegedly given us, and look. in that memo it goes beyond almost the torture memo in the

sense that there's almost no situation where the president can't kill somebody, you know. it's not -- as a legal document, i think the president obama that ran for office, even if he came to the conclusion when he was in office that look, there are people trying to kill us and we need to do this, would have at least tried to do something like a court, some sort of oversight. you have to make a case to some other person or a panel of judges. this is so far removed from who he presented himself to be that i think that that should be of great concern to people, and you know, hypocracy is kind of endem endemic in washington. we have bigger problems like no due process for an american who was assassinated. >> what about the double standard here, particularly among democrats who were crying long and loud up and down pennsylvania avenue about warrantless wire tapping, rendition, enhanced interrogation techniques. up until this week were pretty silent on what the white house

was doing in terms of assassinating people by remote control? >> i mean, what the principal people will tell you on the left that they've been criticizing it all along. >> the aclu has been actually consistent on this. >> the other argument you get a lot is that somehow water boarding is worse than killing people, and that although my brief, infarmal sig informal scd you rather be water bordered or assassinated. so far water boarding is way ahead. it's not just hypocracy in substance, it's hypocracy in tone. in the mid 2000s this country was awash from hollywood, from the main stream media, from academia with this air of exis existenti h al that george bush would kick down the door and eat their children. we had a clip earlier where someone says well, i was troubled by what bush was doing

so i'm compelled to feel sort of icky about obama is doing. emotionally, there's no comparison when it comes to the hypocracy we're seeing. >> we'll hear a lot more about this. thanks so much for joining us, folks. great to see you. have a good weekend. that's it for the panel. stay tuned to see what happens when a presidential speech writer departs washington for hollywood. [ male announcer ] ok, here's the way the system works. let's say you pay your guy around 2% to manage your money. that's not much you think. except it's 2% every year. does that make a difference? search "cost of financial advisors" ouch. over time it really adds up. then go to e-trade and find out how much our advice costs. spoiler alert: it's low. really? yes, really. e-trade offers investment advice and guidance from dedicated, professional financial consultants. it's guidance on your terms, not ours. that's how our system works.

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>> john: finally tonight. president obama's chief of speech writing jon favreau announced earlier this week that he is giving up politics for the silver screen. not acting, though he has been named unone of the sexist people on the planet it will be screen writing which got some people thinking just how that might turn out. >> president obama's chief

speech writer is leaving the white house to pursue a career as a hollywood screenwriter. >> whoa. >> we actually got a claim of his first movie. to be honest it, still seems like is he in speech-writing mode. take a look at this. ♪ from r. >> it's great to be here in columbus, ohio. [ laughter ] >> look, over the past two years, i have signed into law $1.4 trillion in spending cuts. [ laughter ] >> and closed tax loop loopholes to make sure top earning americans pay their fair share. >> the fact is though, we can't finish the job deficit reduction through spending cuts alone. >> yes, we can. [ laughter ] >> we can. >> john: now, that is romance. before we go tonight. one more look at the radar on the scene from boston as the huge storm is getting ready to wrap you up. expected to dump as much as 3-foot